


I N S O M N I A

by viiperfang



Series: Adventures of the Freak Fam [2]
Category: Freak Fam - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Hallucinations, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, More tags to be added, Multi, Poison, Sick Character, delerium - Freeform, poisoned character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-06-24 05:58:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19717612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viiperfang/pseuds/viiperfang
Summary: Sequel toSome Nights.'He's barely aware of the wetness on his cheeks, spilling down his face and staining his shirt. Vinny's speaking again, he can see the movement of their lips, but can't make out words through the noises.Something's oh, so very wrong.He manages to rasp out, "help me,please," before everything goes dark.'When unforeseen complications arise with Shirk's condition, and him spiraling down, down down to the depths of his own mind, it's up to his datemates to figure out what's wrong with their boyfriend before it's too late.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Some Nights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19471270) by [viiperfang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viiperfang/pseuds/viiperfang). 



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_The day is incomplete_  
_The thoughts of total defeat_  
_I don't know what is happening to me_  
_Or if I'll die, 'cause I just never sleep_  
  
**━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━**

Vinny ends up falling asleep once again. This time, they're awoken to their arm being completely numb under Shirk's weight and their phone buzzing on the bedside table. Extracting their arm carefully from underneath their sleeping companion as to not wake him, they roll over and snatch the phone up, not even bothering to look at who was calling. " _Yes_ ?" They huff, wanting nothing but to fall back asleep while they were warm and comfortable.  
  
" _Well, glad to talk to you too,_ " Disaster's voice filters through, a laugh evident even through the phone.  
  
Vinny's jaw splits in a yawn and they rub their eyes with their free hand. "Sorry, just woke up."  
  
" _I can tell. You think he's up to a visit?_ "  
  
Vinny glances down at Shirk, who's still fast asleep, face pressed into the pillows almost uncomfortably, and shakes their head fondly. His hair spills out around his head in a crimson mock of a halo, and Vinny blinks, drawing their attention away from their companion and back to Disaster. "Mmmm, I don't think so. He's still out like a damn light, don't know if he'll be waking up any time soon."  
  
Disaster laughs, and they can almost imagine her shaking her head, amusement twinkling in her eyes. " _He deserves all the sleep he can get_ ," she says and Vinny can't help but agree. " _Well, we'll see you two later, right?_ " 

"Maybe. Might just stay here forever, though. It's a damn comfortable bed."

" _Right, you hibernate then! Ace and I'll see you once you two emerge, hmm?_ "  
  
"Sounds like a plan, Dee."  
  
" _Love you, bye_!"  
  
"Love you too," Vinny replies, then hangs up, drops the phone back onto the nightstand, looks back at Shirk and startles at the pair of green eyes that peer up at them. "Oh, did I wake you?"  
  
Shirk shakes his head, mumbling "no, you didn't, don't worry" into the pillow which ended up sounding more like a jumbled mess than actual words in all honesty. Shirk shifts and rubs at his temples, squeezing his eyes shut with a groan. He lifts his head enough so his words aren't being swallowed up by the pillows, and mutters, "didn't sleep much, fuckin' head's killin' me."  
  
"How long _did_ you sleep?"  
  
"Mmm, half an hour maybe? I dunno." He rolls over and sits up only to dig his palms into his eyes with a hiss. "Shit." His voice is strained, laced heavily with pain, and with almost a feverish tremor to it, so Vinny presses their hand against his forehead, careful of the wound across the side of his head. Shirk drops his hands and gives Vinny a confused look, eyes squinted against the lights.  
  
"You don't have a fever, I think," Vinny tells him, "so it may just be from, y'know, the gaping hole in your head."  
  
"First of all, it's not gaping, or a hole, and second, I just need…" Shirk trails off, his eyebrows twitch together and he loses focus, eyes staring at the bed without seeing. Vinny is on edge and already moving to get in front of Shirk, in case _something_ happened. But it seems he just lost focus or train of thought, because he blinks and comes back to the present. He doesn't finish the thought but seems distressed by his lapse of thought. "Nnnngk," he grunts, hands coming back up to press at his eyes.  
  
Vinny can't help practically crawling into his lap, asking, "are you okay?"  
  
"I don't…" He sounds unsure as he speaks, breath catching in his throat, face screwed up in an unplaceable emotion. "I don't know. I don't–" He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and forces himself to relax before saying, "I'm okay, I'm okay."

"I'm glad. You wanna get something to help the pain? Or I can grab them if you'd like?" But Shirk's already swinging his legs over the side of the bed, pausing to breathe through something before standing. Vinny gets up as well and goes to help him but the damn guys moves quicker than Vinny would've thought in his state, and is up and out in the hall before Vinny can blink. "Fucking Christ, bud," they huff, following him out into the hall. 

Shirk is leaning _heavily_ onto the wall, staggering down the hall, and Vinny doesn't know if it's from his head or the combinations of his wounds, so they move up and take some of his weight by wrapping an arm around his waist and looping his arm across their shoulders. Shirk makes a grateful noise, breathing heavily through his nose as if he were running a marathon. (He isn't as heavy as he used to be, and Vinny really needs to talk to him or Dee about it.)

They limp to the kitchen and Vinny deposits him at the kitchen table, says, "I'll be back in a moment," and hurries off to get painkillers. They're gone for less than a minute but when they re-enter the kitchen Shirk is hunched over the table, head in his hands, and shaking. "Hey, you good?" Shirk either doesn't hear him or is zoned out again because he doesn't react to Vinny's voice. They try again as they approach. "Buddy, you alright there? Not looking too hot."  
  
Still no reaction.  
  
They place their hand on his shoulder and he _jerks_ under the touch, but doesn't lift his head.  
  
"Hey, Shirk, you there, pal?" They lean in towards his head and this seems to do the trick because he sits bolt upright with a sharp inhale and turns to Vinny with a frown. "There he is," they say, pressing the pills into his hand. Vinny then, keeping an eye on Shirk, goes to get a glass of water, and passes that to him too.  
  
He takes the glass with a muted glance and a heavy frown, and swallows the pills with a gulp of water. Vinny really didn't want to leave Shirk, but something told them something was really off, and that they better call Disaster at least about this, and their phone was still in the bedroom. "Hey, I gotta call Dee real quick, will you be okay by yourself for a minute or do you want me to call out here."

It takes Shirk a moment to reply, like his mind is struggling to comprehend Vinny's words. "I think," he starts slowly, hesitantly, "I'll be good for a couple'a minutes." 

"You sure?"  
  
"N–Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure."

Vinny pats his hand and tells him, "I'll just be a couple of minutes, tops." He nods and Vinny heads back to the bedroom. They grab their phone and dial up Disaster, who answers almost immediately.  
  
" _Is something wrong?_ "  
  
"I'm not sure, but my gut's tellin' me something is."

\--

His entire body hurt with every breath, like he's being stabbed and beaten over and over and over again. Everything aches and feels heavy and foreign, like they're not his limbs and he's not really in control.

His head hurts the worst.

It felt like it was being crushed in a red-hot hydraulic press. Throbbing and pulsing and sending shooting, blinding pain with every heartbeat.

Everything felt so far away, like it wasn't real. Like his senses were failing.

Like he was drowning.

He couldn't focus. Thoughts he couldn't bring to the forefront of his mind flitted by like birds. Half-formed sentences and.

And crooked memories.

Something's wrong. He knows this.

This isn't normal.

This is…

This is……

He blinks, trying to stay focused, stay in the now. It's hard, really hard. His mind wants to just slip away into the all-consuming darkness that keeps trying to creep up on him.  
  
He needs to focus on what he can see, smell, hear…  
  
What? What was he doing?  
  
A sluggish blink, struggling through the thick, sludge-like fog in his brain.

Right.

What can he feel? The grain of the wood—scarred from months of abuse—of the table under his fingers, rough and smooth and hard.

What can he hear? The rise and fall of Vinny's voice, muffled behind a half-closed door, talking to someone unknown.

What can he see? Too many things—the bookcase, the cabinets, the tv, his hands.

What can he smell? The smell of home, familiar and soothing and unmistakable.

These are grounding, pulling him out from whatever personal hell his mind is trying to sink into.

Until he sees It.

Standing in the corner of the room.

His chest spasms, he jerks backwards, topples out of the chair.

The Thing stares him down and just… grins, mocking.

Vinny rushes back in, shouting something that's garbled and incomprehensible to his feverish mind. 

The Thing moves forward without Moving, until It looms over him, reaching out. Hands grasp at him, pulling tugging, touching, and he flinches away from them. 

Curls in on himself.

"Don't touch me," he whispers, harsh and broken.

The world is spinning, weaving, tilting, bobbing. Too many voices scream in his ears, disorienting him.

If he had eaten anything recently he'd've thrown up. As it is, he wretches anyway, stomach clenching on nothing and making him feel worse.

He doesn't know what's happening. Doesn't quite know where he is. Doesn't know if any of it is real despite feeling _oh so real_.

He's scared.

One voice breaks through the rest, panicked and familiar and it's this voice to which he clings, letting it wrap around him and pull him out of the recesses of _this_ , bringing him back to reality and back into arms wrapped around his shoulders.

"Shirk! Buddy, hey, hey, are you there? Shirk, please, what's wrong?"

He brings an arm up and grasps onto the front of their shirt, a name bouncing around his skull without stopping. He forcefully grabs the thought and drags it forward, the name blossoming like light through storm clouds. " _Vinny_ ," he gasps, opening his eyes and staring up at their face, pleading and frightened and so, so lost.

He's barely aware of the wetness on his cheeks, spilling down his face and staining his shirt. Vinny's speaking again, he can see the movement of their lips, but can't make out words through the noises.

Something's oh, so very wrong.

He manages to rasp out, "help me, _please_ ," before everything goes dark.

\--

They knew that they shouldn't have left him alone. Knew something was wrong and that he wasn't quite stable at the moment.  
  
They don't know what happened. They don't even fucking know what _happened_.

All they know is that one moment they were explaining what they knew to Disaster and the next thing they know there's a thud, a clatter, and a shout from the kitchen and when they rushed out to see what happened Shirk was a quivering mess on the ground, eyes staring saucers at something unseen to them.

Now he was half on Vinny's lap, passed out on the floor, with their phone abandoned to the left of them while they hold onto Shirk for dear life.

Oh fuck.

" _–inny? Vinny! What the_ hell _is going on?_ "

"I don't… I really don't know! Please, just get here!" They're staring down at Shirk, whose face is drawn, pale, and beaded with sweat. His eyes flicker beneath his eyelids, breaths harsh and uneven even while unconscious, and Vinny just smooths his hair, whispering, "you'll be okay, please be okay."

" _We're on our way, hold tight._ "

"Please hurry."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific TWs for the chapter:  
> Vomiting  
> Self Harm (brief, intentional and unintentional)  
> Thoughts and talk of suicide (brief)

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_You awoke into my night_

_You could see the madness in my eyes_

**━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━**

Disaster practically kicks the door down, Ace in toe. She rushes into the apartment, tossing her purse and keys somewhere to her right before charging down the short hallway and into the bedroom, where Vinny managed to haul Shirk back into the bed. The aforementioned is sitting with Shirk's head in their lap, petting his hair and whispering nonsense to the downed man. They look up as Disaster approaches. "What happened?"

"I-I don't," they groan and hesitate before explaining everything. "So, yesterday or whatever, when we couldn't find him despite knowing he was back, I found him here, covered in wounds trying to patch himself up. He has a wound—I think a graze from a bullet—on his forehead and wounds from barbed wire on his hands and legs, as well as a shallow stab wound and bruises.

He was really upset and agitated and had a couple of breakdowns because he had seen Fabian and Arin working together, and they had apparently seen him and almost got him. He was upset about _being_ upset, and then later scared that they'd get us, but we had worked through it. Then, I guess I fell asleep again because I woke up and called you, then he complained about a headache so I brought him to the kitchen, got him some and called you. Something must've happened though because I heard him hit the floor and yell, and came out to see him cowering from, I dunno, _something_ and that's when I asked you to get here."

They take a deep breath, turning back to Shirk who is scarily pale, bags under his eyes looking like bruises. Disaster frowns and makes her way over, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Shit," she hisses. "He's burning up. Is he sick?"

"I think he was poisoned or injected with venom or something," Vinny murmurs. "This isn't… this isn't an illness."

"Fuck, shit. We have to figure out what–"

She's cut off by the phone in the main room ringing, and she and Vinny stare out the door as Ace answers. "'lo? Uh, yea–Disaster!"

"What?"

"The man on the phone wants to talk to you 'n Vinny."

" _What?_ " She shares a glance with Vinny before calling, "Tell him we're busy!"

"They're bu… He says it's about Shirk! And if you don't want him to die you better get to the phone." Ace sounds spooked, and Disaster gives Shirk a helpless look before standing and making her way out into the hall. Vinny doesn't move. 

She takes the phone from Ace. "Hello?"

" _You're not all here. Vinny, they're not with you._ "

"I can relay whatever you say to them–"

" _I won't say anything until you're all in the same room._ "

"Look, bastard, I don't have time for this!"

" _Do you_ want _him to die?_ " The man screams with what sounds like fear, and Disaster startles. 

"Fine. Vinny, come here a moment, please?" She hears them clamber off the bed and out into the room, before she's huffing into the receiver. "What do you have to tell us?"

" _The poison is called Xodyn, you won't find anything on it because it's only just been developed by Humane Labs and sold to the Beasts for a high price. It's a slow-moving poison, and can take days to a week to run its course and kill the unfortunate sucker. In the meantime, it causes hallucinations, and makes the patient sicker and sicker. The Beasts are the only ones with an antidote. You're lucky I can get my hands on a vial for him._ "

Disaster is reeling. _Who_ was this bastard and how did he seem to know just about _everything_ that was going on? "Who the fu–"

" _I'm an old friend of Shirk's. You can call me Star. I don't have much time. If you want him to live, meet me on the boardwalk, by the ferris wheel, in two days time. I wish you luck until then._ " With that the line clicked dead. 

Disaster let the phone drop from her hand in shock. _What_? She steps backwards in a daze before Vinny's putting a hand on her shoulder. "What's happening."

She relays what she was told.

\--

He awakes with a gasp, sitting bolt-upright and rubbing at his temples. His head still feels like it's being forced through a meat-grinder. He can't remember anything past being lead to the kitchen, but obviously something happened between then and now, because he's back in bed. That scares him, that he's forgetting things. 

His head hurts so _fucking_ bad. 

Vinny isn't in the room. This scares him worse. He swings his feet over the edge of the bed and stands up, only to sway and fall back to the bed as his legs give out. _Fuck_ , okay. Take two. He tries to stand again only for it to happen again. It feels like hands are shoving him down. His head hurts. 

Shirk's hands are shaking, he notices in muted horror. He opens his mouth to call for Vinny, only for a black hand to curl around his throat and choke him until no sound comes out. He panics. Kicks out only for his leg to sail right through Its body. He jerks away and breaks the contact, letting out a choked yell as it advances while he scoots ass-backwards across the bed. As it closes in, it morphs into an all-too familiar face, and Shirk's heart stops. 

"N-no," he wheezes, as the figure laughs at him, hands on his hips. Shirk shakes his head. 

He fall off the far side of the bed, falling onto his neck and shoulders with a resounding _thunk_ , before he's backing away again "N-no. No, _no_ , you're _dead_ , I _killed_ you," he screams, heart in his throat and pounding so hard its painful. He can't breathe. 

His head hurts, so bad. 

_But did you, my child? Did you really?_ The man mocks, voice echoing around him but the man's mouth doesn't move from its grin. _Or am I very much alive?_

"I-I know I killed you, I almost got _executed_ for it, I burned your body–" He's hyperventilating, breathing too fast and no oxygen entering his system. His head swims and pounds. Tears pour down his face as his back hits the closet door and the man—Creature—looms above him. 

Shirk coughs, hand coming to cover his mouth only for something wet to splatter into his bandaged palm. He pulls it away to see the white bandage stained red with blood, and he can feel it clogging his throat and dripping from his chin as he wheezes. He blindy reaches a hand behind him, feeling for the edge of the door, only to wrench it open and literally _fall_ into the closet, before he scrambles to heave the sliding door shut. The Thing reaches his hand in as he slams it, the door slicing through the hand which drops limply to the floor before smoking away into nothing. 

He can't help the wretched sob that explodes from his chest, hooking his leg into the jutting edge of the door and jamming it shut. He can't breathe. His head hurts. He covers his face with his hands and sobs. 

There's something really fucking wrong with him. 

He's _really_ fucking scared. 

\--

"It's a trap, it has to be," Ace curls their lip, crossing their arms. "He's lying."

"But how does he know _exactly_ what's going on?"

"Cameras?"

"Ace, there aren't cameras in Shirk's apartment."

Vinny and Ace have been arguing back and forth for a couple of minutes now on whether or not to trust the Phone Stranger, while Disaster paced the same line Shirk had hours before, finger tapping her lips as she thinks. 

"There are."

"How do you know?"

"They're everywhere–"

"Enough," Disaster barks, whirling around to face the two. "Shirk's potentially _dying_ and you two are busy arguing on whether or not there are _cameras_?"

"Well, how else are we supposed to help? Sit by and watch him croak? Because what that guy said is that _he's_ our only hope with getting the fucking _cure_ ," Vinny hisses back, turning on her. 

"I still don't trust him," Ace grumbles. Vinny's eye twitches. 

"Look, I don't either, but he's the _best_ lead we have on–" she gestures to the bedroom where Shirk is sleeping– " _that_ and this _Xodyne_. I think the knife was coated in it, because why wouldn't it be deeper?"

"Sheer dumb luck?" Vinny huffs. 

"Yeah he has a lot of that doesn't he? I personally think one of us should meet him, just to see if what he says checks ou–" She stops talking as she hears something from the bedroom. She fully turns towards it, ears straining. 

The others must've heard it too because they pause as well. A tense silence settles over the room as they wait… _there_!

Muffled screaming through the closed door. Shirk's words are garbled and hard to understand but the absolute _terror_ is enough to set Disaster's teeth on edge. "Shirk!" She breaths before running to the bedroom door and wrenching it open. It's empty. Her heart stops completely only to stutter to life as she hears a muffled sob coming from…

The closet. Vinny and Ace are right behind her as she cautiously approaches, and tries to open the door, which doesn't budge. "Shirk? Honey, you in there?". The sobbing stops only to be replaced by heaving breaths, quick and panicked. A keening noise can just be heard and her heart shatters. "Oh, Shirk, it's just me."

Vinny tries the door this time, which doesn't even move an inch. "Shirk, you're okay, remember the breathing thing I showed you?"

They hear a quick and low, "No," before he begins repeating something over and over, starting out quiet and ending up almost a yell. "You're not real. I'm dead. You're not real, I'm dead–"

His voice is overtaken by his hyperventilating, and Ace this time tries the door. Whatever was blocking it moved because it slams open louder than any of them expected, and Shirk cowers backwards from the noise, from _them_. His arms fly up and cover his head. 

Nobody moves. 

His arms lower, he peers out at them, and Disaster is taken aback at what she sees. His chin is stained with blood, as is the front of his shirt. But it's his eyes that scare her. They're uncomprehending, full of terror and darting around so fast it makes her dizzy. He doesn't look at any of them for long, glancing into every corner and bit of the room. He's more like a cornered animal than human. That makes him dangerous not only to himself but to them, as well. 

"Shirk," she finally tries. His eyes snap to her own, no recognition in his chartreuse depths. Only true, unabashed fear. "Shirk, it's me, Disaster." His eyebrows flicker together, breathing still the loudest thing in the room. His one hand is fisted into the cloth of his shirt and pulling, like it's choking him. "Hey, honey, it's me, you know me."

He doesn't move. She doesn't either. Slowly, his eyes light up, and he blinks. Then he blinks again, tentatively reaching a hand out. She meets it with her own, interwinding their fingers together. He swallows, harshly, gives one last once-over of the room, before his shoulders tremble. Tears well up in his eyes as he launches forward and into Disaster's arms, hands scrabbling at her back before clutching her shirt impossibly tight. He's shaking so hard it's causing her to shake, sobbing and choking out apologies and half-baked thoughts. 

"Shh," she soothes, rubbing his back. "Vinny, what was the breathing thing?"

Vinny slowly makes their way over, gently prying Shirk's hand from Disaster's back and placing it against their chest. They count and breath, Disaster joining in. This upsets Shirk further who curses into Disaster's chest and jerks away, snatching his hands away and grabbing his hair. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he groans, choking before doubling over and coughing into his hands. He stares down at them in horror before clenching them and pressing them into his eye sockets. "Fuck, _fuck, fuck!_ " 

He erupts to his feet and steals from the room, and Disaster rushes after him only to find him collapse in front of the toilet and heave, bile and a little blood pouring from his mouth as his stomach convulses, before he's coughing again. His face is pure red above his pallid pallor, flushed and unwell, and she makes her way over to hold his hair back as his stomach spasms and he wretches loudly into the toilet. All the while he's still cursing away, hands quivering against the sides of the toilet. 

He wretches once again before collapsing back against her legs, arms covering his arms as another bout of sobs wrecks him. "What the _fuck's_ wrong with me," he rasps. "I'm losing my mind, that's it. I'm just finally going fucking insane."

"You're not going insane," she tells him, rubbing his cheek. He doesn't lean into the touch, but doesn't recoil either. "You're unwell, that's all. Come on, let me help you up."

"No," he spits, pulling away from her at last, "no just _stop_ . _Stop_ being nice, _stop_ caring. I don't deserve it–" Disaster is about to tell him off, but he stagers to his feet, using the sink for leverage. There's a knife balanced precariously on the edge and his fingers curl around the blade, slicing open easily and oozing blood. 

"Hey, stop that, you're hurting yourself–"

" _Stop!"_ He shouts, head down, before staggering from the room. He takes the knife with him. It takes a moment for Disaster to move, but when she does, he's gone. The door slams shut.

"What the hell?" Vinny calls, peering from the bedroom as Disaster hurries to the door. "Did he just leave?"

" _YES!_ And we need to find him before he gets worse," she yells, wrenching the door open. Scarlet drops of blood sparkle in the incandescent light, leading down the hall and to the stairs that lead to the roof. "...I think he's on the roof," she says before leaving as well and making her way up. 

She pushes the heavy metal door open with an effort, and it screeches on his hinges and it opens. She steps out onto the roof and feels wind tugging at her hair as she glances around, finding Shirk perched precariously close to the edge. Her heart slams against her ribs. "Shirk," she hisses, rushing over. 

He doesn't twitch when she says his name, nor when she clutches his shoulder. He's staring over the city, blank-faced as he twirls the knife in his fingers. They're a mess, adorned with knicks and cuts that bleed sluggishly. "What the _fuck_ was that, down there?" she questions. 

"I'm tired, Disaster," he tells her, voice flat and weary. He doesn't look at her. "Tired of your pity. Tired of the fear, tired of whatever the fuck I've been seeing. It's getting old." His fingers stop moving and he grips the knife, pressing it against his arm, much to Disaster's horror. It _just_ bites into his skin, a drop of blood beading up and running down his skin to splash against the roof. "It'd be so easy to just end it. Human beings are fragile."

"You're scaring me," she tells him, voice wavering. "Give me the knife and get away from the edge."

"You're scared? _You're_ scared?"

"Yes!"

He laughs bitterly and hands her the knife, spinning recklessly and hopping off the ledge, before just dropping where he stands so he's sitting cross legged. "News flash, I'm pretty sure I'm _fucking dying_ ," he spits, digging his palms into his eyes. "Plus," he groans, "there's the fucking demon or whatever that's haunting me so I'm _pretty_ sure I'm going to hell soon. So _I'm_ pretty fucking terrified right now." True to his word, his voice shivers. 

"You won't die. As long as we get the antidote–"

"What. Antidote."

She pauses, peering down at him. His hands are still pressed into his eyes, so she can't tell what he's thinking. "Someone called," she starts slowly. "Said they were an old friend, went by Star."

His hands fall from his face and he stares in open shock at her. "What did that bastard say?"

"Well, he said that the poison was called Xodyne, and that he could get the antidote to us."

" _Of fucking_ course _its them,_ " Shirk spits, rubbing his side. "I knew something was up with that guy, barely scratching me when he could've easily torn my stomach open. _Fuck_! Why does everything trace back to Fabian?!" He scrubs at his face before groaning. "You gotta trust Star, please."

"Already planning on it. Anything for you, honey."

Shirk tips backwards until he's laying down, heel of his palms against his eyes again. His shoulders shake as tears slip by his hands. "I really am a fucking mess," he stutters. "Don't think I've cried this much since… ever."

"It's okay to cry–"

"Will everyone stop saying that? I know, I get it. Doesn't make it _easy_ , y'know. Still makes me weak."

Disaster places her hands on her hips. "Shirk Raya, you listen to me. You are not weak. You are _sick_ right now, but that doesn't make you weak. You understand me?"

He glares at her which really doesn't work when tears still drip from his eyes. "Can everyone stop being so damn _nice_? I don't fucking deserve any of your kindness."

"You deserve the world, Shirk," Disaster frowns. 

"That's what Vinny said."

Disaster sits down by his head. "Oh? What else did they say?"

"They said that they l–" he chokes on the word, lip trembling. 

"Vinny said 'I love you,' didn't they? Well, I love you, too. As does Ace." 

"Stop," Shirk sobs. "Stop saying that."

"Why?"

" _Because I don't deserve it!"_

Disaster just sighs, and pets his hair. "I don't think right now's the time to have this conversation. Come on, let's go back down to the apartment. You smeared blood all over your face."

He agrees without saying anything and tries to get to his feet, only to collapse into a coughing fit which only makes him panic again, so Disaster scoops him into her arms, where he flushes and presses his face into her neck, tears still dripping down his cheeks. 

She takes him back inside and places him on the couch. He doesn't have the strength to keep himself up so he falls onto his side and lets his eyes slip shut while Disaster makes a signal across her throat about not asking anything before grabbing the first-aid kit. She sees Vinny frown. Disaster bandages up Shirk's fingers and his arm and wipes his face, making sure to _accidentally_ brush away any stray tears as she does so. His face scrunches up and he groans something about his head hurting before falling silent. She stands and pats his head before handing the kit to Ace who puts it away and the knife to Vinny with hushed instructions to _hide_ it. They don't ask why. Shirk either passed out or is faking it really well, because his head is lolling off the sofa as his breathing evens out, one arm draped across the back of the couch, the other against the floor. She rolls her eyes and grabs a blanket. 

"Two days," she murmurs, pressing a kiss on his forehead. 

"Two days and we'll have the antidote."


End file.
